


dig site under a red sky

by BrokenJardaanTech (BlastedHead)



Series: Groom Lake Aftermath [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Biotics (Mass Effect), Bottom Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Crossover, Custom Female Ryder | Sara, Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Disability, Disabled Character, F/M, Female Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Mars, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Top Upgraded Connor | RK900, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, interfacing, unexplained disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 18,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27833353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlastedHead/pseuds/BrokenJardaanTech
Summary: living in confusion is never easy, let alone isolated in a dig site on the red sands of mars cut off from the rest of the world. together, cronos and rhea might have a chance to survive - and grow.prompt fills for rk1700 december 2020 set in a mass effect x detroit become human crossover universe
Relationships: Connor/Upgraded Connor | RK900
Series: Groom Lake Aftermath [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046914
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: RK1700 December 2020





	1. day 1: meeting

**Author's Note:**

> rk900 is called Cronos. female connor is called Rhea. all other characters are probably oc.
> 
> for more about this universe, please go to [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441899/chapters/64422799), [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441899/chapters/64749907), and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441899/chapters/64505644).
> 
> all chapters are sfw unless otherwise specified.

‘I don’t give a shit, I’m a director of a research facility under construction, not a fucking babysitter!’

The walls may be made to be sound-proof, but nothing escapes Cronos’ enhanced ears, and he is quite certain that Anchor knows it as well and hence the shouting. Sure, she is hard to read at times, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t find a few patterns or repetitive behaviour that allows him to better predict her wishes: that’s why he knows that she wants him on her side.

He taps into the audio just in time for the person on the other side of the call to respond. ‘There is no place in the solar system better suited than the dig site,’ the voice says. Cronos recognises it; it is from the Administrator. He has never met her in person before, but according to Anchor, the Administrator built and created him. ‘The shuttle is en route. ETA eighteen minutes.’

‘Motherf -’

The line is cut off before Anchor finishes cursing the daylight out of her boss, or at least, who Chronos  _ thinks _ is Anchor’s boss - from the gossip passed around the facility, the relationship between the Administrator and all the members in the Council are… complicated. Much more muddy than the ranked structure of the people they are in charge of. Cronos hasn’t met anyone else other than Anchor yet, and if he has, they decided to hide their identity from him which, given the Council’s alleged preference towards being in the field themselves (Anchor is a good example), is quite reasonable. 

He backs off from the door he pressed himself against just in time for it to slide open and the human to storm out. ‘Overbearing arsehole,’ he hears her mutter under her breath, but her tone is neutral when she speaks to him. ‘You heard it?’ He nods. ‘Good. Last time I checked they aren’t expecting a storm in a few hours, so if you don’t mind the dust, you might as well go out like this.’

That is a huge assumption. ‘You want me to be there when the shuttle arrives?’

Anchor jerks her head towards the direction she wants them to be heading towards and they walk down the hallway in long, brisk strides. ‘The Administrator thinks it doesn’t matter, but given that the androids she’s dropping off into our care is your predecessor? Better give you - both of you - a heads-up at the very beginning than letting the Administrator have her borderline unethical way.’

‘Unethical?’

‘Yeah, listen,’ she stops in front of the door leading to another hallway. ‘We’ve got only eighteen minutes right now so I’m going to suit up and propel myself towards the eastern landing pad. The Administrator’s new project is your predecessor so she’ll look like you, but don’t take what you can do for granted.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Can’t explain it in detail ‘cause even I am not exactly sure what she did but… The Administrator heavily modified your counterpart. From the data she sent me, Rhea - that’s her name - is very different from who you are. Just be considerate, okay?’

He can do considerate but… ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

Anchor gives his shoulder a heavy pat. ‘Same here, so let’s do all we can to make Rhea comfortable here, alright?’ 

Cronos finds himself smiling as he nods, and he proceeds towards the airlock leading to the landing pad where he changes into some public gear: he doesn’t want to get dust in the seams of his chassis, thank you very much. But he does leave the helmet in the locker because it gives him another HUD in addition to the one he already has in his vision.

He hears the rumble of the element zero core and the significantly quieter but sharper hiss of the thrusters before Anchor arrives suited up in her underarmour except for her helmet which she is holding in her hand, and she exchanges it for one of the public helmets in the sanitised locker. ‘Don’t wanna scare your predecessor,’ she explains as she puts on her new headgear. ‘A helmet with only a visor isn’t exactly the most welcoming sight.’

‘I’m sure she will understand your position.’

The human gives him an ironic smile through the tinted glass. ‘Let’s see for ourselves, shall we?’

Her omni-tool lights up and the airlock depressurises with a hiss. When he looks up, the blue of the Kodiak is sharp against the backdrop of the red hue of the sky. It lands smoothly, the directional thrusters stirring up the dust on the landing pad, but Cronos finds himself not caring at all. 

The door opens. A shivering figure that looks like his twin but yet different at the same time steps out with a wobbly step, and he dashes forward to help Rhea steady her feet and nearly gets distracted from the abnormalities his scans pick up: questionable amendments, lower-than-optimal internal temperature, insufficient thirium, while androids in the RK series should not be modified easily, is able to regulate their own temperature, and thirium efficiency is high. He starts to dislike the Administrator despite not having met her once.

‘Hello,’ he greets his modified predecessor. He presses a kiss on the back of Rhea’s hand just for show, and it seems to be something nice to do. ‘My name is Cronos. Welcome to Mars.’

He straightens up. Rhea blinks once, twice, thrice and looks down at their joined hands. Her lips tremble, her eyes water, and she looks like she has something to say but can’t. Noting that she is still shivering, Cronos holds her other hand as well and offers without consulting Anchor, ‘Let’s get you inside so that you can get warmer, shall we?’

He looks up at the human to seek approval. Anchor nods, but her expression is disturbed. ‘Bring her to the visitor’s quarters,’ she orders. ‘Get her warm, give her a change of clothes, and I want a report on what you can find about her later. Understand?’

He gives Rhea’s hand a tug to lead her inside the airlock. ‘Understood. And you?’

The door slides shut behind them and starts hissing. 

‘A very thorough talk with the Administrator.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636364757808693248/rk1700-december-day-1-meeting)


	2. day 2: secret

Cronos knows Rhea is hiding something behind her, but he can’t, for the love of his life, put his finger on  _ what _ . She doesn’t talk because she can’t, she spends most of her time struggling to be awake for eight hours per day before succumbing to the fever which never seems to get away, and to this day, Anchor claims that even she doesn’t know what is going on with Rhea; the fact that he believes in her only makes him more disturbed about the Administrator and Rhea’s circumstances.

He finally catches a glimpse on how Rhea’s inner workings the first time they kiss. They’ve seen enough people in the movies do it when they’re in love, they’re pretty sure they are in love with each other, so why not? And the skin where they touch falls away to reveal glowing chassis, what started as a shallow meld of their minds turns into an impromptu debugging spree as he discovers one problem after another in Rhea’s system, bugs that have been causing her pain and suffering since - since the beginning of who Rhea  _ is _ . His thirium pump aches from the realisation that she lives her entire life in pain, and even after smoothing out as much code as he can without losing himself entirely in her system, the problems remain.

_ It’s okay, Cronos, _ Rhea says gently in their joined minds,  _ I’m used to it. _

Cronos shakes his head.  _ Doesn’t make it right. Let me help you. _

_ Okay. _

With her explicit permission, he digs deeper into Rhea’s mind, but whatever changes he presumed the Administrator has done to the other android, he did not expect a deep see of information that not even his advanced processors can understand, can comprehend. Faint images of a distant sun, of the cold, of ice, and of a tuning fork flash in front of his eyes, none of which makes any sense at all, and he hits a wall and it  _ hurts _ when he tries to piece everything together as if something is preventing him from making sense of the information in Rhea’s mind (not like he can). He jerks away from Rhea, their bond severing, and he scrambles to stand up to tell Anchor like, right now. She deserves to know.

Rhea’s hand latches onto his shirt in a surprising display of speed.  _ Stay _ , her eyes beg.  _ Don’t leave me alone. _

Cronos sighs. ‘I’ll have to tell Anchor about it later.’

She nods, and he settles next to her and draws her into his arms, their skin falling away again in yet another interface to share his processing power with her and ease her pain. Tomorrow, he will find Anchor and properly ask her about the Administrator. Starting from tomorrow, they will face whatever Rhea is suffering from together.

And maybe uncover the secrets behind the impenetrable wall that is the origin of most of the said problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636365148637036544/rk1700-december-day-2-secret)


	3. day 3: vulnerable

‘Do you trust me, Cronos?’

It is such a loaded question, Cronos thinks as he finds himself in an impromptu staring match with his handler. Anchor is still in her work clothes, her modified uniform serving as an underarmour at all times despite the archives being one of the less significant and thus, less of a priority for the rare few people who both know and don't like what the Alliance is doing. ‘You never know what will hit you next,’ is the human’s motto, and Cronos has to agree.

‘The Administrator entrusted both of us to you,’ Cronos replies. ‘If there is someone who has the experience in androids and the power to resist her, you are the only person I can trust in this system.’

Anchor snorts at his words. ‘“This system,” huh?’

‘I know my… connections are limited compared to you, but -’

‘You want me to look at her now, or can you wait for tomorrow after I’ve got everything set up properly?’

It’s surprisingly considerate on the human’s part considering her track record of being the most ruthless leader among the Council right after the Administrator herself. No time for emotional connections, no time for goodbyes, no time for even letting her family know that she is alive somewhere in the solar system. He expected her to simply contact the Administrator and let her deal with Rhea which, given the Administrator’s alleged deeper history with androids, is reasonable, but he has learnt not to look at a gift horse in the mouth, and he does have Rhea’s best interest in mind; no use waking her up now after he spent so much time sorting and cleaning up her system just to allow her to sleep more than five hours.

‘Tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I don’t wish to wake her up just for a few tests.’

Anchor nods, a small smile glazing her face, and the rings in her eyes glows more prominent, inhuman and threatening. ‘You’ll be surprised by how much we can learn from something simple.’ She hits a key on the holographic keyboard and ejects a flash drive, pressing the delicate component directly into Cronos’ palm. ‘Here. A compilation of all theories I’ve come up with concerning Rhea’s condition. I doubt anyone or anything can calculate the exact probability of all these,’ Cronos already lets his skin recede to interface with the drive, ‘but I think it’ll be nice to know what to expect.’

Cronos has to blink rapidly to clear all the notifications and alerts in his HUD before formulating a response. ‘I could have used them sooner.’

‘My slow-arse computer just finished sorting all this shit out,’ Anchor says as she puts her computer to sleep. ‘Now shoo. I’ve got a fucking lab to prepare.’

And so Cronos returns to Rhea’s side and holds her through the night, not breaking their interface even once in order to chase off shapeless nightmares and locked-up memories threatening to resurface while her guard is down. Even if it means he cannot operate with maximum efficiency the day after. 

But being the most advanced prototype in the solar system (he has no way to confirm it, but he trusts Anchor on this matter) does have its perks, and when the sky finally turns from the blue of dawn to red, he manages to coax Rhea out of bed and helps her drink her morning thirium before escorting her to a lab he didn’t know existed before today. 

‘I’m not surprised that you don’t remember,’ Anchor explains as she makes the final preparations. Cronos eases Rhea into a pod suspended off the ground by a mass effect field and resists the urge to climb in with her. ‘This room is where the Administrator remotely completed your construction with my help. She thought it would be fine if I dragged you out of the pod directly right here, but if she really thinks you’re a human, it means a humane treatment, and that means  _ not _ waking you up in a glass coffin still plugged into the system.’

So that’s why he remembers waking up in a bed. ‘Did she approve?’

‘She was too busy to care.’ Anchor creates a floating chair out of her biotics and, with a kick of her foot, floats towards a device on the other end of the room. ‘She wanted you out of the pod, I got you out of the pod - simple.’

‘Could’ve been simpler.’

A flash of blue, and Anchor is suddenly standing dangerously close to him, his pre-construction programme activating automatically and taking away all the colours in his world, but the glow of the human’s biotics shrouding her eyes can be seen even without colours, the rings of her cybernetic implants on her iris dark, focused circles against a backdrop of blue; intimidating despite her being shorter than Cronos for 10 centimetres. She doesn’t seem to notice Rhea’s flinch and whine of fear. 

‘I’m going to state it clearly here, right now,’ she pokes the android’s chest with a biotic-shrouded finger, and he nearly topples over from the surprising force. ‘All the others you see in the archives are people of the Alliance formally. They’re paid, they went through the training, they passed all the tests, they swore their oath to protect humanity at all cost. They know the score, they are within the ranked structure, and as their commander, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure of it. The two of you, on the other hand,’ she backs off, ‘made no such promise. The Administrator thrusted you into this environment without telling you everything about what you should expect and I have explicit orders not to tell you too much, so the least I can do is to make sure that both of you are comfortable and don’t have to face one hundredth of the shit people like me are dealing with on a daily basis!’

The air charges with static electricity but Anchor manages to keep her biotics in check and damages nothing in the end. Taking a deep breath to retract whatever stray energy she set loose, the next time she speaks is much calmer. ‘Let’s get on with this, shall we? I’ve wasted enough time.’

They both go back to Rhea’s side, Cronos holding her hand up against his cheek and kissing her knuckles, Anchor to… place a hand on Rhea’s shoulder before removing it and calling up a hologram of a human figure, an empty shell waiting to be filled with information. 

Anchor makes a few more adjustments and curses. ‘The pod will have to be closed in order for this to work.’

Rhea’s breath hitches, the skin on her hand falling away at the same time as Cronos’ to initiate an interface.  _ I don’t want to - _

_ We might have to. _ Then to the human, ‘Is there no other way?’

Anchor shrugs. ‘I can plug Rhea into the system to disable her faculties before opening her chassis up. That not only takes a lot of energy - which I doubt she has right now - and also much more dangerous than a thorough scan considering that I’ll need to rummage around in her biocomponents.’ Her fingers dig into the edge of the still-open pod, and her eyes meet Cronos’. ‘I don’t recommend nor do I have the confidence to do it.’

‘There’s no other way?’

_ It’s alright, Cronos. _

Cronos looks downward at Rhea and notes how her lips tremble and her eyes waters. Her breath hitches, and she wriggles her hand to tell him that she wants him to let go as tears fall; even without the interface, he knows that she is terrified, of being alone, of being trapped in the pod, of a past that she has no concrete recollection of, but he still closes the lid of the pod, trying not to feel like he is burying Rhea. 

‘It’s just a few hours,’ Anchor adds as if sensing his thoughts. ‘If you want to, you can maintain a shallow interface with her through the pod. It’s not as deep as a direct one but…’

Cronos would have given her a hug if she hadn’t moved away to make some more adjustments. Placing both hands on the lid of the pod with his skin retracted, he opens his mind to its system and there Rhea is, her signal the weakest he has ever experienced, but at least he can be with her and  _ she knows it _ . Their eyes meet through the glass, and he gives her a small smile despite the circumstances.  _ I’ll be with you the whole time,  _ he tells her.  _ I won’t leave you. _

A vague wave of comfort and happiness washes over his processors before slowing into a trickle of no more than a few lines of code at a time. Overwhelmed by the sudden silence, Cronos snaps his gaze towards Anchor whose arms are swathed in a pair of omni-tools. ‘Things are unexpectedly slow from the large amount of data stored in her,’ she says as she waves her arm to move on to the next step. ‘Hang on, I think she can feel you.’

In the pod, Rhea places her hand flat against the other side of the glass directly below where Cronos’ hand is, but it drops back down when the signal suddenly spikes and then dies down once more, and that is her last movement before her eyes slip shut as well and she lies as still as a corpse. The stream of data is still there, though, so does it mean -

‘Don’t disconnect. She needs you.’

And Cronos obeys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636497604920983552/rk1700-december-day-3-vulnerable)


	4. day 4, 9, 23, 28: broken/damaged; sensory overload; resurrection; instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: temporary character death (how else can i resurrect him?), sensory overload, a bit of robogore

‘Tell me again why you’re suddenly training me?’

There is a certain irony when the only time Cronos sees Anchor without her underarmour is when they’re supposed to beat the crap out of each other with spacetime-bending, physics-breaking space magic that apparently every single android in the world has, but there she is, standing in the middle of a deserted gym dressed in a black tank top and standard-issue trousers, and Rhea, bundled up with several layers due to the lack of temperature control in the gym and Mars is _cold_ , is seated on a bench pushed against the wall and is nibbling on a piece of thirium chocolate. 

‘The situation is getting worse out there,’ says Anchor as her hands light up with swathes of blue. ‘The Administrator has ordered me to give both of you training so that you can defend yourself in case we got attacked, and seeing that Rhea -’ she cocks her head towards the other android - ‘is under no condition to fight and you two stick together at all times anway,’ out of nowhere, she throws a biotic sphere towards Cronos which he dodges easily, ‘giving you enough training should offer enough protection. Lesson one: use your biotics wisely.’

She yanks her head back and pushes again, and this time the force slams into Cronos’ chest quicker than his processors can register what exactly happened. It does, however, activates programmes he didn’t know exist in him. His nerves tingle, the air around him crackles with static, and the next thing he knows is that his world is tinted a shade of blue so bright it is nearly white. Power and mnemonics - familiar yet foreign, like a dormant instinct awakening - rush through his mind, his circuits, his veins, urging him to open a corridor through spacetime which brings him directly through Anchor. He will kill her, he realises as time seems to slow down and Anchor’s face gets closer, closer, closer. Another surge of energy, a bright spike of light -

And nothing.

* * *

She can’t. Can’t see, can’t stand, can’t imagine, but it’s happening in front of her, the bright lights, the splash of thirium, the horrible creak of Cronos’ chassis before he becomes a mess of tubes and wires and grey plastic on the floor of the gym and he is dead, dead, _dead,_ **_dead_ ** and he’s gone and she’s going with him and she can’t and runs and runs and runs until her world is dark her body in pain and no one is shouting behind her and there is only pain, pain pain…

* * *

The scraps and scattered biocomponents that comprised Cronos’ body wriggles and trembles on the floor of the gym as if guided by an invisible force, moving towards a specific direction with his processors as the epicentre, and when two pieces are close enough to each other, they slot together into a larger piece like an invisible builder completing a part of a puzzle. The thirium dries and evaporates. The click of chassis against chassis remains constant.

The door of the gym opens to reveal Anchor bringing two large containers of fresh thirium with her. Her face is blank as she approaches the nearly-completed body on the floor, nor does her expression change as she uncaps one of the containers and pours the thirium down his throat, exchanging the empty bottle for the other one when all the blue blood has been drained. 

A skinless hand smacks the bottle away suddenly, and Cronos jerks into a sitting position with a bone-rattling coughing fit, biotics crackling uncontrollably on rapidly-generating skin in wisps of dark blue. He takes a deep breath and looks down at his biotics-swathed hands.

‘Is this your plan?’ he asks as he flexes his arms and retracts his powers. ‘And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -’

Anchor waves his apology away. ‘Not the first time the Administrator programmes weird shit into her androids,’ she says, giving a hand to help the android stand. ‘That’s her signature move. A Charge, as she calls it. I couldn’t have countered it if she had been in your place.’

Cronos busies his hands by making himself presentable, his fingertips touching where the dried thirium is and has to override his auto-scan function. He looks around and realises, ‘Where’s Rhea?’

Anchor calls up a map of the facility on her omni-tool. ‘Can’t get a signal on her,’ the hologram blinks away. ‘She can’t be far. I’ll issue a wing-wide search, and if there’s no sign of her -’

‘I know where she is,’ Cronos interrupts without knowing why. Then a small stream of data starts letting itself known, a barely-there presence in his mind that is so familiar and _is crying for help_. ‘I can sense her.’

He doesn’t wait for Anchor to give him permission to leave and instead bolts out of the gym guided purely by the small trickle of Rhea’s consciousness. Being broken lines of code, it isn’t even coherent data that he can make sense of without decryption or further processing, but his legs seem to have their own will and bring him through hallways, pass staff who he doesn’t greet, cannot greet because he is so focused on his task, round unfamiliar corners and into unfamiliar hallways, and finally stop in front of a strangely-familiar door. It looks identical to the one leading to the lab where he was built and where they more or less figured out what was wrong with Rhea (and it was a _lot_ ), but then again, a lot of hallways and rooms in the facility look familiar from being modular and deserted to the point that nothing distinguishes them from one another. There is power feeding into the door which saves him the hassle of rerouting energy from stars-knows-where, and after receiving no response - both in reality and through their bond - for five minutes, he interfaces with the door and it slides open with a small hiss.

Their bond explodes.

 _NO LIGHT!_ Rhea yells through their connection. In reality, she screams and pulls on her hair, a sharp, ear-piercing sound, and Cronos makes the mistake of slamming his bare hand on the door to override it as the sound only makes Rhea jerk and sob even more. The only source of light in the room is the holographic lock indicator hovering in front of the door, but still Cronos dims it until he can barely see anything. The proximity sensors kick in automatically, his world turns grey, and there Rhea is, curled up in a corner in a foetal position with tears rolling down her face, her LED hidden from view behind her palm in her hair. Minimising the sound of his footsteps and approaching her slowly, he brushes her hand away so that both of them have some light to see by - and to deactivate her skin as he kneels down while deactivating his own. With no barriers at all between them, he draws her into his arms, temple against temple, cheek against cheek, hand in hand, Rhea’s back against his chest, her body between his legs, he opens his mind to her and her to his, sharing knowledge and processing power and every single bit of pain Rhea experienced in the last twenty minutes. It felt like a lifetime.

 _It was to you,_ Rhea says through their interface. _I saw you die._

_Didn’t feel like dying to me. Somehow I know I am always going to return._

Rhea turns her head for a kiss which Cronos gladly gives her, a gentle press of lips with no tongue so that they won’t overwhelm Rhea’s system again in such a short period of time. Maybe later when both of them have calmed down. Maybe after they tell Anchor that they are indeed alive and well.

 _Can we stay here for a moment?_ Rhea asks.

Cronos nuzzles her LED spinning in serene blue that reminds him of sunsets. _Of course._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636580009218375680/rk1700-december-day-4-9-23-28-brokendamaged)


	5. day 5, 6, 13: superior/replacement; comfort; assemble/disassemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cronos and rhea get a new piece of furniture and get adopted by elijah kamski.

It is the facility’s quarterly large-scale acquisition day. It means new equipment, new tech, new people, and nearly everyone is excited - a welcomed change and a reminder that they are not alone in the fight (Cronos is  _ pretty _ certain by this point that there  _ is _ a conflict going on out there, an intense and high-stake one nonetheless from how hard Anchor pushes him during training sessions. Exactly against whom or what it is about, though, those he has no idea about, and he leaves it be for now since Anchor doesn’t seem to be making an explanation anytime soon.) Even Rhea, who doesn’t quite understand what is going on, seems happier and more excited than usual.

What surprises Cronos, though, is that the two of them also have a quota despite not being Alliance personnel formally.

‘Is Rhea still staying in your quarters?’ Anchor suddenly asks one day as she reloads the thermal clip of her rifle. She had persuaded Cronos to let Rhea have some alone time while she taught him how to shoot, and Cronos successfully convinced her to wait for him in their quarters with a new box of building blocks. They exchanged few words until then, the recoil of the rifle against his shoulder and the blast of supersonic miniature slugs hitting the targets having become familiar sensations as a result, and although he is certain that handling weapons is in his programming, coating the slugs with his biotics to increase their damage is something new.

‘Of course,’ Cronos replies. The thermal clip isn’t completely spent yet but he reloads it anyway. ‘What’s the matter?’

Anchor raises her rifle again and spells out  _ L. W. A.  _ on the target. Her real name’s initials, maybe? ‘So you guys have been squeezing into the same bunk this whole time?’

‘I don’t see the problem with it,’ Cronos admits as he does the same to his target,  _ RK9c  _ appearing in the dented metal board. ‘We are close.’

The human looks impressed. ‘You guys need more space?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I reviewed the dimensions of your quarters. You guys can have a double bed which comfortably fits the two of you without sacrificing much living space, and since we’re requisitioning some new furniture anyway, I think…’ she puts down her rifle in exchange for a pistol and shrugs. ‘Why the fuck not?’

Cronos folds up his rifle and watches Anchor bury a few larger warped slugs into the target’s head. It twists and creaks under the force of the biotic fields attached to the slugs. ‘A bed is a lot of materials.’

‘Materials which we can afford to print,’ eject, replace. ‘There are already people who’ve said that they won’t be able to use up their quota of new materials and offered them up to people who need it. My rules are as long as the total amount of material we need doesn’t exceed the total allocated amount, I don’t mind.’ She holds the pistol with only her left hand and fires a shot. ‘I don’t want to waste anything so I think it’s good to ask you first.’

‘Then I need to ask Rhea too,’ he says before picking up a pistol and emptying all the slugs he can into the target’s forehead until the thermal clip overheats. ‘The bed is hers as well.’

‘Sure,’ Anchor fires a shot just to catch it midway with a strand of her biotics. ‘Give me an answer before tomorrow dinner. I want this done as soon as possible.’

Cronos nods and aims and then realises something. ‘Does it come with a new mattress?’

‘Of course.’

‘And blankets?’

‘Just go to the storage room and grab a few. Remember to wash them twice, though. Stars know how long they’ve been there.’

A plan starts formulating in his processors, and he can feel his face splitting into a grin. ‘Will the bed come in pieces?’

‘You don’t actually think we have a printer large enough to print a whole bed in its entirety, do you?’

‘Good.’ Then returns to his target despite his mind not being able to focus on it now.

‘You’re planning something.’

‘Just something for Rhea, Anchor. Completely harmless.’

Anchor snorts. ‘We are walking mini-nukes if we want to be, Cronos, even Rhea if pushed to her wit’s end.’ A shake of her head. ‘We’re never completely harmless.’

Rhea blinks at him after his explanation even though he has already shared his processing power with her.

_ A new bed, _ she repeats.  _ For us? _

_ Yes, _ Cronos replies.  _ We have the space. We will have the materials. We can build the frame together. _

Rhea picks at a loose thread dangling from Cronos’ shirt with her free hand.  _ What will happen to this one? _

_ Chugged into the recycler just like everything else, maybe,  _ he sends back with a shrug.  _ We might even save some material by reusing this one’s, who knows? _

_ Can I roll across the new bed? _

_ It’s ours. We can do whatever we want. Just don’t break it. _

_ Hmm. _ Rhea wriggles until half of her body is lying on top of Cronos’, after which she tilts her head up for a kiss he gladly indulges in by slowly coating every single surface of her mouth with his own analysis fluid using his tongue. Her whines make a certain part of him fill with thirium, Rhea starts grinding against it and sending waves of pleasure through both of them, and Cronos flips both of them over so that he is covering her body with his and is looming over her.  _ Yes please,  _ she tells him, and they get lost in each other for a while.

Despite telling Anchor that he is going to assemble the new bed with Rhea, he knows it is very likely that he will have to either do it alone or ask someone to assist him due to the sheer size of some of the components. It can also be turned into a practise of his biotics, but he doesn’t want to hurt Rhea accidentally in case he loses control either. Disassembling the original bed is easy enough given his raw strength and the composition of its parts, though, and he is even allowed to chop some of the smaller pieces of the original frame into smaller blocks for Rhea to play with while the others - together with the now too-small mattress - are sent for recycling. He then goes to retrieve the components of the new frame after teaching Rhea to amuse herself by throwing the blocks around and is surprised to see a man he has never seen before waiting for him.

‘You’re Cronos, aren’t you?’ his body language is tense as if he is unused to situations like this. ‘Anna - Anchor - asked me to help you build your new bed. Everything’s printed out or shipped here; help me with them, can you?’

Cronos moves to help him load a particularly long plastisteel beam onto the trolley and notes the stripes on his sleeve. A member of the Council. ‘Is Anna Anchor’s real name?’

‘You can say so.’

An affirmative, then. ‘How about you?’ Cronos asks. ‘You know who I am but I don’t know who you are except that you’re in the Council.’

The man looks at his sleeves and lets out a small ‘ah.’ ‘Call me Elijah,’ he says and loads another box with a clank from the parts within. ‘Elijah Kamski, formerly known as Ilya Kaminski. Council member, traitor to the Alliance - according to some, at least.’

Cronos decides to carry the last box himself. With a cock of his head, he and Elijah begin their way back to his quarters. ‘I doubt you would be here if you had really been a traitor.’

Elijah chuckles. ‘Can’t argue with you on that.’

They return to Cronos’ quarters to Rhea sleepily pushing her new blocks around the space between her legs as her eyelids droop and her head nods every other second. Clearing the floor by giving it a biotic sweep, Elijah brings the package in and cuts through the wrapping with a crafting knife which came out of nowhere, and the mattress starts inflating itself upon coming into contact with air. They move it to the living room and lay Rhea down there, but after tugging her in and watching her squash her cheek against the pillow, she simply lies on her side and watches, with bright eyes, Elijah and Cronos set off to work. 

They bring everything in and scatter all the parts in sorted piles on the floor but Cronos is lost. He has no idea on how to start, nor does he think he has all the tools needed, and the human looks like he’s trying not to laugh when he looks at Elijah. Then he does. 

‘The Administrator programmed you to biotically charge at your mentor as an instinct but didn’t give you built-in construction manuals?’ A sigh and he sobers up instantly, wiping non-existent sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘How typical of her.’

‘Are you implying that the Administrator is a violent individual?’

‘Not inherently,’ Elijah sighs and shakes his head. ‘Anyways, let’s get this done before bedtime, shall we?’

‘Do we even have enough tools to build it?’

‘Look at these,’ he says as he picks up a beam. ‘The welts at the end. They’re supposed to lock against each other. No nails, no tape, no glue. Just tension and good ancient engineering.’ He puts it back to its original place in the pile and calls up his omni-tool. ‘Now I swear the instructions are somewhere on the intranet…’

Cronos doesn’t have access to a lot of things due to his identity as an informal on-site personnel but he delves into the databases anyway, hitting numerous virtual walls where classified data is stored and is reasonably out of his reach. He could’ve overridden them if he wanted to, but something in his programming tells him that it is not worth it, so he merely retreats and waits for Elijah to finish the job for both of them. 

‘There,’ he announces when he finds it. ‘Level one classified, of course, because why not. Stick your hand into the hologram and it’ll transfer to you directly.’

The hologram flickers and blinks when Cronos does so, but he indeed obtains the blueprint and the construction manual in the span of no more than a few microseconds; with new information at hand, they at last start slotting pieces together into larger parts on their own before collectively deciding to put some of the bigger pieces together to complete the outer frame first, and the three of them - Cronos, Elijah, and Rhea who has climbed out of the nest of blankets and pillows and is sitting on the floor wrapped like a dumpling - stare at the hollow rectangle for a moment.

‘Are you certain it’s going to hold?’ asks Cronos. ‘It seems…’ he doesn’t know how to explain what he’s feeling.

‘It will be sturdy once the supports are added,’ the human replies in a reassuring tone. ‘Let’s get them in before it actually collapses.’

And so they hasten their effort and shoves the support beams in, Cronos nearly breaking one of them when he accidentally put too much force on it and Elijah nearly trapping himself between two beams when he very nearly places a piece which would have left him no way out, but somehow, despite their clumsiness and lack of experience, they manage to get the frame done in less than two hours in total, and they let out breathes they didn’t know they were holding in realisation.

Elijah meets Cronos’ eyes. ‘Mattress?’

‘Mattress.’

Turns out, their most difficult task is getting Rhea out of the nest she has made while they were still assembling the bed frame. No matter how much Cronos and Elijah coax, sweet-talk, or bribe with toys or food or kisses (from Cronos only), the most reaction they can get from her is a stretch of her body underneath the blankets and a few mischievous blinks that definitely does  _ not _ stem from sleepiness. Time for an ultimatum.

‘If you don’t get up now, I’ll have to snatch you,’ Cronos says. ‘You know I can and I will.’

Rhea’s jaw cracks open in a yawn and then shakes her head. Very well.

‘Elijah, get ready to snatch the mattress away.’

‘Sure thing,’ the human answers with an incline of his head, and on a count of three, Cronos clams his arms around Rhea - together with all the blankets around her - and hefts her squirming body up as Elijah pulls the mattress and pillows away and drags them onto the bed with quick, agile movements that can only come from years of experience. He hops off the bed and brushes his hands together to relieve them of non-existent dust, and Cronos can finally throw both himself and Rhea - playfully, of course - against the supportive material with a bounce. 

Rhea melts against the mattress  _ and _ him.

‘See, Rhea? That’s what you’ve been missing out on,’ he says as he shifts to give her more space to roll around. She keeps making these happy humming noises from her throat which makes his heart swell with happiness as well. ‘There’s a reason we don’t sleep on the floor.’

Rhea hums. With a lazy stretch, she rolled over for one last time before latching onto Cronos as tight as she can -  which is not very tight at all, but he can give her the illusion that he is firmly in her grasp.

Elijah laughs and ruffles Cronos’ hair. ‘You guys look comfy.’

Rhea deactivates her skin and requests for an interface which Cronos gladly accepts. Waves of drowsiness and contentment crash into his system, and he has to set up a filter just so that he doesn’t slip right into sleep at the very moment.

‘Indeed.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636829623992418304)


	6. day 7: machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinda cheated this one by making two other characters talk about rk1700. ah meh.
> 
> trigger warnings: mild dehumanisation, swearing/profanity

Anchor looks like she would have slammed the door shut if it could be. As the door slides shut and the lock engages, she never once takes off her eyes from the person standing imposingly in front of her, and her eyes are defiant with anger and steel; if looks could kill, her glare would have at least burnt a hole in the dark metallic chassis of her companion.

‘Permission to drop the formalities?’ she asks. ‘It’s real fucking tiring to pretend that I have a speck of respect for you.’

The android turns around to reveal glowing red rings lining their eyes. ‘I don’t need your respect to operate the Alliance, Anna. You know it.’

‘Good,’ Anchor - Anna - stands unfazed by the red orbs and non-standard dark chassis, and she crowds into the android’s personal space, her nose nearly touching their chin, ‘’cause this isn’t about standard Alliance protocol. What in the sky did you do to Rhea?’

‘Evolution,’ is the too-calm reply. ‘A necessity stemming from the inevitable evolution of sentience. Attachments. The desire to propagate their own species in their own image. Cronos and Rhea, parents to the most powerful gods. The most advanced models in existence apart from me. The perfect subjects.’

Anna gives the android a hard shove with a blast of blue from her palms. ‘On one hand you said all androids are human, and at the same time you do  _ this _ ?’ she gestures angrily at nothing in particular. ‘Pick a fucking side, Ryder. If the other androids know what their beloved  _ Administrator _ been doing all this fucking time -’

‘You should know more than the others that they know what’s at stake,  _ Director _ ,’ the android - the Administrator purrs. ‘One small sacrifice for the brightest future. It is fortunate that Cronos has a… natural affinity with Rhea.’

‘Is that really him or is it just programming?’

A humourless chuckle. ‘Oh please, you know the first thing I do before letting them have a  _ hint _ that the Alliance exists is breaking their programming,’ Ryder says. ‘Can’t say that it completely overrides the original code, though.’

‘Does Rhea even know what’s happening to her?’

‘No and it is better this way.’

‘“Better?” You own fucking child is in pain every single sodding day, barely walking and keeping herself awake, and you think it’s “better” this way?’ A growl. ‘You don’t even treat her as a person, do you?’

A bright flash. A bang. When the tendrils of blue dissolve, Anna is steadying herself from being held against the wall, and the non-existent distance between the two has somehow widened into the entirety of the office. ‘A person  _ and _ a machine. The ability to manipulate others and be manipulated against our will is in our nature, one that we should exploit to reach our maximum potential. You have your orders,’ Ryder looms over Anna once more, ‘now fall in line, Director, and be glad that you are here to witness literal evolution.’

The emotions on the human’s face fade away and are replaced by blankness. ‘Still,’ she says, smoothing out the creases on her clothes, ‘I’ll appreciate it if there’s a way to relieve her pain other than force-feeding her thirium.’

Dark metallic plates twist into a cruel smile. ‘I’ll have to take a look at Rhea.’

‘I’ll have to be there. So will Cronos.’

‘And if I say no?’

‘Have fun prying Cronos away from Rhea without killing one or both of them.’

Ryder’s eyes narrow. ‘Fine,’ she snaps. ‘Bring them to my office. I’ll see what I can do.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636833791957204992)


	7. day 8, 12, 14: hands; dissimilarity; focus

Home is cold. Rhea is cold. Everything is cold. When she is cold, she puts on more clothes while snuggling with Cronos underneath the softness, and since other people are also wearing something called ‘long sleeves,’ she guesses that they are cold as well - although not as cold as she. Facial features overwhelm her mind so she focuses on something else to distinguish the blur of the many people at home apart from one another, and luckily the people around her all have different hands.

Anchor’s are easy enough to distinguish. Other people - not even Cronos - can see it with the naked eye, but there is a metallic sheen on her skin, a net of hyperthin wires glistening and reflecting the lights in the room depending on where she is standing. When Anchor touches her bare chassis, her hands always match the temperature of her skin, neither hot nor cold.

The next pair Rhea picks up on is Cronos’. Like her, his skin can peel away to make way for bare chassis, and for him, she knows that it means interfacing; for her, it means her mind finally gaining relative clarity due to their shared processing power. Like his body everywhere else, he manages to keep his hands warm no matter how cold home is. Her favourite activity is being spooned with her back against his chest and his large, skinless hands covering hers. It keeps her warm. It also lessens the pain.

The Administrator’s, though, are none of the above.

Firstly, they are metallic; Cronos tells him that all androids have plastisteel chassis, but evidently it does not apply to her. They record every single scratch their owner put them through, and Rhea learns on that day that she can be sympathetic towards a pair of hands.

Secondly, they don’t feel like anything. Normally she knows and she knows  _ a lot  _ when something like a breeze brushes her cheek, but when she grabs Rhea’s hand and goes straight into rummaging around her mind for bugs and new strands of code, there is no pressure, no pain, no sensation; if she closes her eyes  _ and _ has enough processing power (which she doesn’t), she can see her hand drifting in a void aimlessly, a vortex disconnected from the rest of her body under the control of a being so powerful that resisting is not even a thought in her mind.

Thirdly, the gaps between pieces of the Administrator’s chassis glow, seams of blue between scratched dark metallic plates. They are the colour of thirium but brighter, and in the dark and delayed exposure of Rhea’s eyes, every single movement makes them look like they are on the verge of exploding in a bright flash of biotics and annihilating everything in its wake.

‘Is she alright?’ comes Cronos’ voice from a place far, far away. It makes Rhea feel safer.

‘I’m debugging and smoothing out her system,’ replies the Administrator matter-of-factly. ‘And hands off. I can’t risk any interference. She is unstable enough.’

Cronos forces his hand to return to his side, his expression closing off just like his skin covering his bare chassis once more. He takes a deep breath.

The twitch of his fingers doesn’t go unnoticed by Anchor and the Administrator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/636900036215734272)


	8. day 10, 27: structure; home

‘Uh, Cronos? Reed left something for you before he left. Please come and retrieve the package.’

Cronos’ gaze lands on Rhea who has been resting in bed since returning from her… impromptu debugging with the Administrator. He reaches for her through their connection and tells her what he will do and where he will go, and when all she does is burrowing deeper into the nest she has made out of a few blankets and some spare clothing, he takes it as an affirmative and, after curbing his anxiety that threatens to overtake him whenever he has to leave Rhea for any length of time, he goes to the coordinates attached to the message and finds a box as wide as his shoulders waiting for him.

‘All of this?’ he gestures at the package. ‘And who is Reed?’

‘Yes, all of it is yours, and you might know him as Elijah Kamski. He isn’t exactly subtle about his true identity, unlike most Council members.’

Cronos nods and takes the box with some customary expression of gratitude. He gives it a shake, hearing the content click against one another and feeling the shift of the centre of mass and the weight. More plastic just like the frame of his bed, but this one is much smaller and much more closely-packed. He gives it one more shake just to hear the sound again and goes back to his quarters.

He sits on the floor with the box in his lap, and before he can interface with the seal and unlock it, Rhea somehow manages to sneak up on him and hook her chin onto his shoulder which of course startles him, but he calms down quickly enough.

‘Let’s see what Elijah got for us, shall we?’ he says to Rhea. Sure, interfacing might be more convenient and power-saving, but there is something about talking and making his actions known to other people that just… seems more attractive. As if they weren’t that alone in the solar system. 

Rhea nods (or as much as she can in this position anyway). Deactivating the skin on his hand, Cronos establishes a connection with the seal of the box, and a hologram of a mini Elijah pops up. ‘Hi, Cronos, Rhea,’ it says. ‘I noticed that Anchor and the Administrator were keeping a lot away from you, even the essential stuff you need to understand a bit of what’s going on. There also isn’t much for you to play with apart from blocks so…’ holographic Elijah shakes his head with a chuckle. ‘More blocks for you, I guess. Mind you, this one is much more delicate and detailed, so don’t throw them around like your normal blocks.’

The hologram disappears, and the box starts unfolding itself neatly to reveal a neat stack of plastic parts ready to be cut out and assembled into… something. Cronos interfaces once more with the box, now no more than a thin polygon created out of malleable synthetic fibre with electronics weaved into the threads, and finds the construction manual. That is when he opens a connection with Rhea and sends it to her as well even though it is highly likely that, without direct interfacing, she won’t be able to process it and merely logs it as another minuscule change in her system - everything is compared to the vast memory storage she has and cannot access. The comment about Anchor hiding things away from them gives him a bad feeling about his surroundings but he decides to not look too deep into it for now; he’s got something to build.

_ Let’s see, _ he carefully untangles the pieces of plastic from one another and spreads them out onto the floor.  _ We need a piece of this from here, another piece from there, and then we’ll need to join them together before putting it onto there… _

* * *

A few hours and a half-hour break to coax a bottle of thirium into Rhea later, the model of the facility is finally taking shape. Sure, the classified and off-limits sections and wings of the site are still represented by larger chunks of plastic, but it  _ is _ detailed and delicate when it comes to the places they are free to access, and he can imagine a miniature Anchor in the shooting range, the facility’s personnel having meals together - no matter android or human - in the canteen, he and Rhea watching the shuttles depart and taxi from the viewing deck next to the landing pad. There even is a model of a shuttle which Cronos can easily control and make float in midair with his biotics. He leans back, realising that the model is almost finished, and gives a larger piece to Rhea.  _ Care to do the honours? _ he asks through their link. 

Rhea accepts the piece slowly and then holds it in her palm. Right. Processing power. Cronos holds her other hand with his bare hand, initiating an interface, and shares the isolated instruction for the part with her. Eyes widening in recognition, Rhea easily slots the component into where it should be, and, without breaking contact, she assembles the rest one-handedly with occasional help from Cronos. He suspects some of the pieces are magnetic as they automatically snap to their place as long as they are held close to where they are supposed to be, and he adds ‘express gratitude to Elijah’ into his to-do-list simply because of how happy Rhea looks, how she turns her head to smile at him after each piece is secured in place, how -  _ for the first time since Cronos met her _ \- she can set her pain aside for the shortest while; yes, even when they couple and Cronos is deep inside Rhea and they can be the closest to each other, the agony that is everyday living does not fade for her.

But now - but now -

The final piece. It is small, it should have been handled with extra care and probably with the help of tools, but Rhea looks so determined to put it onto the model that stopping her would have been a crime in itself, and the slight fear of her dropping the piece in the structure will prove to be futile; it snaps to its place with a small click, the lights in the room dim with a low thrum, and the places where the generators of the facility should be glows, thin lines of blue emerging from the rooms to complete the final piece of the model by forming into people and equipment too small to be represented by actual parts. With a glowing hand, Cronos directs Rhea’s bare finger to tap a corner of the structure they just assembled together. Examining the model and pointing out the movements of holographic people don’t exactly answer the many questions they have, but it is a reminder of their home, something familiar amongst so many uncertainties and secrets. 

_ Look,  _ Rhea points at a hologram.  _ That’s us. _

Cronos squints and sees a tiny version of the two of them playing with blocks. Their facial features are grainy and pixelated just like the others, but he thinks that they are happy. Just like themselves.

_ Yes, Rhea,  _ he draws her into the space between his legs and envelopes her in a hug.  _ That’s us. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/637081628030763008)


	9. day 11, 19, 20, 30: warmth; devotion; fantasy; cherish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: explicit content

When Rhea gets sick for the third time in two weeks, Cronos knows that spooning her underneath the blankets isn’t a long-term solution. His thirium pump throbs in pain whenever he sees her delirious with fever and fainting underneath the strain of stimuli and information, and he also knows how much Rhea hates passing out and waking up hours or even an entire day later. He needs a solution soon but he also knows that he can’t do it alone.

So he braves the unknown and asks around; to humans: how do they keep warm, how effective it is, how to make the cold more bearable; to androids: how to use the least processing power as possible to maintain body temperature, how to reduce other functions’ processing power usage, how to, in extreme cases, shut off some of those functions entirely to keep the temperature regulation system running, because although he can do all of the above on his own, the changes the Administrator made to create Rhea mean that not only can she not achieve the same, Cronos also has no idea how to help her achieve it. The humans provide as many suggestions they can think of and work for them and there are so many options for Cronos to choose from in the end that it is nearly overwhelming even for him, and the androids more or less give the same general idea on how normal models - which Cronos suspects Rhea’s system is based on - functions in reality, but they are adamant about not answering the last question until he hints that Rhea might die if she doesn’t prioritise some functions over the rest, and it is with great reluctance that the technicians tell him that they will figure out something to help Rhea regulate her internal temperature. For now, though…

‘Have you heard of heated jackets?’ it is a human who asks Cronos. ‘I mean, I’m not sure we have stuff like this in storage ‘cause the site’s always kept just a bit colder than comfortable, but I’m sure you can easily make a more clumsy version of the thing with the stuff we have.’

‘How?’

‘Put pockets on a jacket, put hand warmers into the pockets. Simple.’

‘Do we even have hand warmers?’

‘Yes. You won’t believe how much we’ve got leftover from the early days of the site.’

Cronos is sceptical about the simple part, but since the plan is the most doable compared to the others he has collected, he thanks the human and goes to Anchor to ask for materials, and she of course directs him to where they are without a single question. She seems to be more sympathetic towards them after the Administrator’s forceful debugging and has generally left them to their own devices provided that Cronos doesn’t miss his training sessions - which he never does and does not plan to do so anytime soon; as much as he wants to stay with Rhea at all times, he still needs to know how to protect her from harm. He easily gets a jacket and some recycled fabric (decontaminated, of course) before dragging everything back to his and Rhea’s quarters and inputting the recipe for needle and thread to the 3D printer. He at first is mesmerised by the way they materialise in the printer, but then Rhea surprises him by hugging him from behind and establishing an interface seamlessly and sending him some… specific thoughts. He reciprocates by manhandling her onto the bed and unbuttoning her shirt for better access.

They aren’t cold for quite a long while that follows.

* * *

Having sex keeps Rhea warm. It also tends to overwhelm her system and drain her thirium even more quickly than usual, so the jacket is still the most viable option to help her maintain a working temperature and keep her comfortable. Jacket in hand, Cronos pre-constructs where the pockets should be sewn onto and projects the blueprint onto the fabric that he acquired some time ago before drawing the outlines directly on it. He cuts them out using a special blade he borrowed with Anchor’s permission - turns out all the standard-issue fabric the Alliance use was made to be resistant towards many things including cuts and scratches and therefore requires special tools in order to be handled - and lays them on where they should go onto the jacket to see if he got them right. He did. It is at this moment that Rhea rolls off the bed clumsily (and maybe causing Cronos’ thirium pump to skip a beat as well) and sleepily approaches the table squinting at the assortment of materials and fabric in an obvious  _ what is this? _ , and he puts down the needle and pulls her onto his lap while also giving her their customary wake-up kiss.

_ Just something for you, _ he says through their link.  _ See these over here? _ he points at the shapes he has cut out.  _ I’ll put these onto the jacket. You can put hand warmers in there and you’ll be warm. _

_ Will it last, though? _

_ Perhaps. Better than dragging blankets behind you, right? _

_ Right. _

She doesn’t sound too convinced but does doze on Cronos’ lap as he carefully finds a balance between keeping her on his thighs and being able to work on the jacket. With Rhea relaxed and asleep in his lap, the scratch of thread and the pop of the needle piercing the fabric, the low rattle of the loose part of the vent that he should have fixed a long time ago but just can’t bring himself to do so - it is… nice. Peaceful. Tranquil. He can at least pretend that there is only he and Rhea in the world, that he doesn’t have the power to tear her apart on the molecular level and reduce her to the most fundamental particles, that he isn’t living on a cold and stormy desert planet, that there isn’t a conflict that he doesn’t even know the fundamentals about out there. He and Rhea have seen the vids - the movies or films, as the humans and androids who have lived a considerable time on earth call them - from earth, the planet where humanity is supposed to come from, where there are forests with trees older than entire civilisations and taller than some buildings, where people can venture freely outside without worrying about sandstorms that can carry you away and bury you deep in the ground before you can react, where the sky, once blue, is tinted the most beautiful shades of violet and fire when the sun rises and sets; the breeze ruffling their hair and smelling of flowers, the warm sun on their faces, the sand against their bare feet as the ocean meets the shoreline again and again. He wants to have someone apart from Anchor and the people on the facility who treat him as if he is an outsider (he knows he is technically an outsider in the literal sense as he is not a formal member of the Alliance, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt), maybe some actual friends to train or play with. Have a job, go to work every day, observe the people around him as he is on his way, and come back to a home where he and his loved one live together - a small corner on a floating piece of rock that is theirs and theirs alone - and, if he sees something that he thinks Rhea would like, get a small gift for her to surprise her and thank her for merely existing and giving him a purpose to become stronger and making him so, so happy. 

In his fantasy, Rhea is healed, too. No cold, no confusion, no pain, just… contentment and happiness without all the questions surrounding her very existence. She understands what is going on around her without Cronos sharing his processing power with her. She can have all the soft and fluffy blankets and pillows she wants to keep herself warm and comfortable. Maybe she will continue building blocks in her spare time. Maybe she’ll use her extra processing power to design and create the most magnificent buildings the world has ever seen while still managing to reduce their impact on earth. 

In his fantasy, their minds join completely when they are making love. In reality, he always needs to be careful to not get dragged into the chasm of Rhea’s encrypted storage - dive in too deep and he will be lost forever; in his dreams, though, there is no need for caution. They can open their minds completely as they interface, the line between him and her blurring and blurring until they are one as he sinks deep into her and kisses her forehead, her tear-stained cheeks, her sensitive fingertips, her lips; sucking on her tongue and coating it with his own analysis fluid so he is the only thing she can feel, nibbling on the fin of her throat and leaving marks for everyone to see, biting the hardened nub of her nipple to hear her whine and her breath hitch - all while imprisoning her hands in one of his while the other roams freely on her body and feels the muscle underneath trembling with excitement and pleasure, with overwhelming love and emotion. Maybe, by then, he won’t feel guilty tipping her over the edge before she was ready. Maybe she will even beg him for release. He will go with him and spill his seed deep inside her, and with both their minds and their bodies joined, it is the closest two androids can be with each other. He wouldn’t mind being tangled forever like that.

The last piece of fabric is secured. Cronos makes a quick work of tying the end of the thread and snaps the remaining section off with his teeth and holds the jacket at arm’s length to examine his handiwork. Finding no flaws his scanners can pick up, he drapes it over an arm and rubs a circle on Rhea’s back just to find her having woken up some time ago. Their gazes meet. She cups his cheek with her bare hand, and he deactivates his skin at the points of contact for an interface.

_ I saw it, _ she presses their foreheads together.  _ Your vision for the future. _

Cronos has to lower his gaze. Not knowing what to do with the newfound knowledge, he unfolds the jacket and holds it behind Rhea.  _ Try it on for me. _

She slides her arms into the jacket and he zips it up. It fits perfectly. She looks at him again as if waiting for his next move, so he tells her that he’s going to retrieve some hand warmers real quick and gives her a kiss before setting off to get them. He might have jogged a little to get back faster, but so does everyone else in the facility, and he returns with a boxful of it with no suspicion whatsoever from the site personnel. Rhea seems curious about the devices and is very enthusiastic about activating and placing them into the inner pockets of her new jacket, and somehow they end up in bed again with a blanket tugged around them, Cronos having taken off his shirt and Rhea’s head pillowed on top of his bare chest. Heat seeps through from the jacket even though the material is insulated, and Cronos considers his handicraft session a success. 

Rhea becomes pliant completely after a few minutes, presumably after she is totally warmed up. She reaches for his hand.  _ Will we ever have that? _

_ Have what? _

_ Your dream. _

Cronos calculates the probability with all available information and it turns out to be non-zero. Very close, but not zero.  _ We will,  _ he replies. Although isn’t exactly a lie, this train of thought is better left broken.  _ Are you warm? _

Luckily Rhea doesn’t seem to notice the diversion and snuggles closer.  _ Yes.  _

He wraps both of his arms around her.  _ I’m glad. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/637283831792238592)


	10. day 15: snow

Cronos comes back from training one day to Rhea shaking a… thing. With a mansion inside of the clear impenetrable sphere and the suspended white particles, a scan tells him that it is something called a ‘snow globe’ except that it is shaped like a lamp. He sits on the floor behind Rhea and pulls her into the space between his legs, adding a kiss onto her cheek when she is close enough, and he knows the snow globe really has her attention when she doesn’t turn around to return the kiss as usual. He presses their cheeks together, and their skin at the points of contact retracts automatically for an interface.  _ Where did you get this? _ he asks.  _ Aren’t you cold watching it? _

Rhea frowns.  _ I don’t…  _ it cuts off from there.  _ Can you turn off the lights? _

Their quarters plunge into darkness with a thought from Cronos, and he watches Rhea slide her pinky underneath the bottom of the lamp and turn it on with a click of a switch. Light spills out of the mansion’s windows, reflecting off the flakes which start spinning automatically propelled by the invisible swirl of the liquid in the globe and shrouding the room in a warm, mesmerising shade of yellow. When the raw brightness of the lamp becomes too much, they both look up at the same time just to see the swirling spots of brightness on the ceiling, on the wall, on each other’s face. It should not be this warm, this magical - mansions of that style are empty, remnants of a time long passed; snow means cold, cold means heat loss, heat loss means… means death to Rhea. Does Rhea know this, or are facts and logic ignored in the face of a beautiful sight? Why does he, advanced as he himself is, also feel the same despite having the ability to pre-construct - in great detail, nonetheless - how they would slowly waste away if left out in the open, how he would have to give up on maintaining Rhea’s system so that she could die before him and live her whole life knowing that she was loved? 

_ Anchor won’t let that happen,  _ Rhea’s voice pulls him out of his downward spiral.  _ She’s brave enough to protect us from our creator. She won’t… she won’t…  _ her uncertainty grows.  _ I think…  _

Cronos shushes her.  _ There is no use speculating,  _ he feels hypocritical when he says it.  _ We have other things to worry about. _

_ Such as? _

_ My training. The conflict that Anchor still refuses to tell us about. Your condition. _

_ Very true. _

Rhea wriggles in his arms. They both stand, he lets her drag him towards their bed, and she places the snow globe lamp on the bedside table before flopping down onto the bed, bringing Cronos with her. They cuddle close together without compromising their view on the light show, and although Rhea falls asleep not long after, thoughts do not stop swirling in Cronos’ head like the flakes in the snow globe.

* * *

A few days later, he still hasn’t figured out where the snow globe came from. Neither the item itself nor the box it came from bear enough evidence for him to reconstruct the events of its arrival into the room as if it materialised out of nowhere. Again the grey backdrop of his reconstruction software, he watches the yellow outline of Rhea’s figure wake up from her nap, see the box on the floor and, instead of pinging him to check if it is anything explosive or harmful, open the cover and slide the block of shock-absorbing material out of the container. The material comes off soon afterwards, and he sees Rhea’s reconstruction stare at the particles suspended in the globe for a few minutes until - presumably - most of the snow has fallen, after which she picks it up and switches it on just to drop it onto the shock-absorbing material; even without a face, Cronos can sense Rhea’s shock and panic as she carefully takes the lamp in hand once more before assuming the posture he found her in. He blinks, colour returning to his vision, and he immediately sends a report to Anchor. A few hours pass during which she forwards updates from site security regularly to him, Cronos preparing his mind for an upcoming wing-wide sweep which will remove him - and Rhea, by extension - from their quarters for at least half a day as all the reports return inconclusive, but it isn’t until a full day afterwards that the human brings two armed escorts with her and orders them to not only bring the androids to another room but also stay with them at all times. When he asks her about it, he can feel her eyes scanning the room and landing on the origin of their troubles, and her gaze does not soften even as it sweeps over Rhea who flinches and hides behind Cronos.

‘Someone managed to sneak an unauthorised item deep into this facility without being detected,’ a biotic field so weak that it is barely detectable fizzles and expands from her body until it fills the entire room. ‘This is a security breach and I’m not risking your safety.’

‘Then why didn’t you come earlier?’ he puts an arm around Rhea and guides her towards the door even as he says so. ‘Why now?’

‘Use your processors, Cronos.’

The door slides shut behind them, and the click that follows and the change in the colour of the hologram signify the lock engaging. They are locked out of their own quarters. Next to him, Rhea shivers, making Cronos realise that they don’t even have the time to grab her jacket.

‘C’mon,’ one of their escorts says and gestures towards the direction they should go with their gun. The uniform and helmet are designed to hide as many identifiers as possible, and now Cronos can’t even scan them to know if they’re human or android. ‘This way. We’ve got your new place stocked up.’

Their new, hopefully-temporary quarters is no different from their old one apart from the standard-issue bed which now feels a bit narrow, but since it also means more cuddling and snuggling with Rhea underneath layers of covers, he isn’t complaining about his current situation despite the lack of answers on Anchor’s part. 

Who  _ did _ answer his questions, on the other hand, is Elijah.

_ Cronos,  _ the email reads,  _ it’s nice to hear from you. For the sake of keeping things pleasant, I have decided to ignore the fact that the snow globe you mentioned seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and to answer your first question: yes, I do have experience with snow. A lot of it, in fact, as my childhood home is quite famous for being cold and harsh in winter, and our winters remain long despite the influence of climate change. Since the environment I grew up in was not exactly… child-friendly, it had always been better for me to focus on the unique patterns of snowflakes than the death and lifelessness it symbolises - easier on my poor young brain, and one needed all the hope and discovery they could find in the cold land far up north. _

_ As for your second question about the warmth you feel when you look at the snow globe: I have always found it ironic that winter coincides with traditions and customs that, under more pleasant circumstances, should provide warmth and support to a person, be it familial love or that between friends and/or lovers, and I must apologise for not being able to provide a more substantial answer as my personal experience with said traditions and customs are sparse and in between. Those I did experience, however, I remember clearly to this day. I will not discuss the details here as it will pose a security risk  _ and _ be a breach of Alliance protocol, but should you wish to pursue the matter further, feel free to ask Anchor about it. Councillor’s approval. Signed, Reed _

Cronos wonders if Elijah knows that Anchor would probably kill him if he tried to talk to her right now but sends him a reply anyway to thank him for his input and direction. Their skins receding at their points of contact, he interfaces with Rhea and plays the recording of the snow globe’s projection in their original quarters on a loop until it puts both of them to sleep so that he doesn’t have to think.

* * *

Their return to their quarters comes as suddenly as their departure. Anchor, as usual, provides little to no explanation apart from a simple ‘the situation has been handled,’ and therefore as Cronos watches Rhea crawl all over her original home to examine whether everything is in place - even the snow globe is, in fact, and Cronos has to ask about it - he decides that a visit to the human is needed, one way or another. Rhea has already turned on the lamp and is ready to switch off the lights as well when he asks her if she wants to follow him to find Anchor, but she willingly goes with him under the condition that she is allowed to bring the lamp with her (and of course he lets her; he rationalises that if Anchor allowed the lamp to remain, it means the lamp is safe). Finding the human in a large facility is, however, another can of worms in its entirety; it is after fifteen long minutes of wandering around and probably annoying the brains out of site personnel by asking them about Anchor’s whereabouts that they stand in front of a locked door leading to the observation deck. Taking a breath he doesn’t necessarily need physically, he holds Rhea’s hand tight in his grasp and knocks with his other one. A few seconds of silence. He feels Anchor’s biotics sneaking up from the minuscule gap underneath the door and gives him a poke. The lock disengages with a click.

‘Come in.’

Cronos interfaces with the touchpad to open the door. Rhea lets go of him and barrels in, stopping next to the human only when she realises that Anchor, who is sitting on the floor parallel to the floor-length windows, doesn’t seem to be interested in her and is staring at the floodlight-illuminated barren landscape outside. She kneels to place the lamp in front of the human, and that is when the latter turns and nudges the lamp towards the android. ‘Keep it,’ she says, her eyes not leaving the view once. She sounds… tired. ‘You seem to like it.’

As usual, Rhea turns towards Cronos to indicate that she wants him to answer for her. ‘She does,’ he replies. ‘Is that why you left it in our quarters?’

Anchor lays her gaze on him. ‘Ripping an object a person is attached to without said person’s consent has been proved to be traumatic. My orders are to take care of the two of you, and that means no unnecessary harm from me.’ She leans forward to place the lamp in Rhea’s arms properly. ‘I might agree with the Administrator in a lot of things, but this is not one of them.’ A cock of her head as the rings of her eyes seem to glow brighter, but it can be a trick of the floodlights outside. ‘Why are you here anyway?’

‘Do you know where or whom did the lamp come from?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do we want to know?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

Anchor shrugs, her face carefully blank. ‘There’s a fight out there. No use dragging you into all that.’

‘What fight?’

‘None of your business. Hopefully, at least. Any more questions?’

‘Yes, actually,’ he sees Rhea shaking the globe again. ‘When we turned on the lamp, it… snows in the globe. Logically, snow is associated with winter, and Rhea and I should have felt cold when looking at the artificial snowfall. However, both the scene and its projection brought us a warmth that should not be associated with snowfall. Is it a normal reaction? Elijah suggested asking you about this strange phenomenon.’

The human looks at Rhea and watches her entertain herself with the snow globe, and for a few seconds there is silence. Then, gesturing to the space in front of herself, ‘Sit down.’

Cronos mirrors her posture and sits down leaning against the glass with his legs outstretched. Seeing that her - what exactly is his relationship with Rhea anyway? - successor is on the floor, Rhea crawls underneath his arm without being prompted and snuggles close with the lamp balanced in her lap, a small smile on her face as she lays her head on his shoulder and continues looking at the particles in the snow globe softly like it both contains all the answers and is the most lovely thing in the universe.

‘One way to explain it without breaching my vows is that a… holiday where people celebrate together coincides with winter in the northern hemisphere of earth,’ Anchor’s line of sight turns towards the landscape outside once more. ‘Some places snow, some places don’t, but if we’re talking about stereotypes, yes, it snows while everyone stays indoors to enjoy their time with their loved ones. Snow-blanketed outdoors, fire-warmed and brightly-lit indoors; good, warm food, companionship, a chance to meet with one another - these are just a few images and expectations of the holiday.’

‘And to you?’

‘Sort of similar to this. Food, people I wanted to be with, warm on the inside, cold on the outside. Sometimes we exchanged presents, sometimes we didn’t, some were even worse.’

‘“Worse?”’

‘Try running away from an incompetent father and a bitch of a mother with your sibling even though you know a blizzard is coming. Worst winter ever, but that was also the last one we had to suffer through with our parents, and it got substantially better afterwards.’

‘Do I want to know the details?’

‘No.’

‘Understandable?’ he can’t imagine two humans surviving the cold, but then again humans are not supposed to be able to control dark energy either, and here they are. ‘Then what were the other winters like?’

‘I just described it to you.’

‘Yes but…’ Cronos struggles to convey that he wants to know more without sounding too eager, ‘I want more details.’

‘Details, huh?’ Anchor’s voice now matches the blankness of her face. ‘You sure you want to hear about earth? There isn’t much worth reminiscing.’

‘They will all be new to me.’

‘Fine,’ the human straightens herself. Her eyes turn glassy. ‘There was no snow the first time I truly celebrated the holiday, but it rained starting from the afternoon and continued well into the night. I wanted to study for my exam and had been doing so since the beginning of the holiday, so I thought… I could spare a day with my sibling. He busted arse for the past ten years of his life trying to raise a kid even when he was just a kid himself as well and getting a high school diploma  _ and _ earning extra cash to feed the two of us because we ate so damned much thanks for unexplained space magic, and that was the first winter he didn’t have to worry about our heat cutting off in the middle of the night and giving us hypothermia.’ A pause. ‘I sneaked downstairs the night before to put the present for him next to that tiny-arse tree since it was so small that there wasn’t enough space underneath to shove that box into. He wants an actual holiday, I wanted to give him one, so I even got the damned book wrapped in recycled paper. It was just a sodding book I had seen him eye when we had walked past bookstores, and he cried - legit cried - because I gave him a damned book he wanted and wrapped it up nice and tidy with no tape. I learnt on that day that people  _ can _ actually cry and look so happy at the same time. Then we had brunch, he watched me play some video games before going for a nap, he woke up, we had dinner, we watched the movie version of a book associated with the holiday as he sipped on hot chocolate, and we went to bed. All without being scared once that we would need to brave the chill to get some last-minute groceries - supplies - or that we wouldn't have enough money to keep ourselves full the week after.’

She ends it there, and Cronos gives himself a few minutes to let that sink in. ‘Sounds like you love each other a lot and celebrated it through the holiday.’

A dull thud. Cronos draws his eyes away from the lamp falling out of Rhea’s limp hands and follows Anchor’s gaze just to see clunks of ice slightly larger than the nail on his thumb hitting the ground, turning into smoke before they can hit the floodlights, shattering on the reinforced glass of the observation deck and subliming under the heat, and soon the ground is covered in a thin layer of broken pieces of dry ice. Mars’ own version of snow.

‘Is this normal?’ Cronos asks. 

A small smile appears on Anchor’s lips. ‘Every single summer.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the snow globe/lamp in the fic:  
> 
> 
> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/637583524784898048)


	11. day 16: soulmate

‘What exactly did you convert them into?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it does. Half the time they barely know what’s happening to them!’

‘Do they have to know?’

‘Have you ever had an android waking you up in the middle of the night panicking and on the verge of tears because his only companion is dying?  _ Again _ ?’

‘Complications are expected with what I’m doing with Rhea. She pulled through, didn’t she?’

‘Not without further complications, no.’

‘Still,’ the Administrator’s voice is unfazed as the logo of the Alliance - the earth protected underneath twin arches - spins lazily, ‘I expect her to survive no matter what. You won’t let her die.’

‘What if I do?’

‘Trust me when I say you don’t want the most advanced prototype android in existence to go berserk in a barely-functional research facility. You’ll probably win the fight, but you know, you might have to kill him.’

‘You don’t sound too bothered by that.’

‘We have time. Besides, this is just a side project. If it succeeds, it will change the world; if it doesn’t, there is nothing lost for both humans and androids.’

‘Except for the two of them.’

‘An insignificant loss in the grand scheme of things.’

Anchor explodes. ‘Why say so?’

‘They are of utmost importance to each other and each other only. Lose one and the other will go as well. No collateral. A clean end.’

‘You sound certain about it.’

‘I made them for each other.’

‘Artificial soulmates?’

‘A perfection no organics can achieve.’

‘A match created by an organic and can therefore be flawed.’

‘Not anymore. Haven’t been for over a decade.’

‘If both of them are deviants, how come they can still follow your plan? If neither of them is assigned missions, do they even know they’re just doing what you want them to?’

‘Personal experience. Breaking away from your programming does not necessarily mean deleting all programmed traits, and I assume from your reports that it is the case for them as well. I created Cronos to derive satisfaction from protection and care, both of which Rhea is programmed and made to crave and need both mentally and physically. There is no better match in the solar system.’

‘I don’t even know what Rhea was like before she became deviant.’

‘Her past is irrelevant. As do yours. As do mine.’

‘The past is what shaped us.’

‘What use is a past if she doesn’t even remember? You of all people understand this.’

It plunges Anchor into silence for a few moments. ‘So help me with it.’

‘With what?’

‘Cronos and Rhea. According to you, they cost quite a fortune. It will be a waste for them to die.’

A pause. ‘Very well. I’ll send you their schematics. I’ll be online if you have any questions. Transferring now.’

A hologram of a progress bar pops up. The compressed file is downloading slowly with only one thousandth of a percent being transferred to the Director every other second, and Anchor’s expression remains sceptical. ‘Why now? After all this time, I thought you would never give me the whole picture.’

‘Time is required to let a relationship nurture and grow. No unnecessary information is required for that; in fact, a bit of hardship and suffering might bring people closer.’

‘“A bit” my arse, Administrator. You should have stayed for a longer time to observe -’

‘In any case,’ the Administrator interrupted, ‘read it. Remember the signs and report to me when the symptoms last for more than one Martian week. Any questions?’

‘None at the moment.’

‘Good. Administrator out.’

The spinning logo blinks away. The file continues to load.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/637659783564001280)


	12. day 17, 21: connection; pulse

Like everyone else, it is after losing something he took for granted all the time before that Cronos misses it. Although he doesn’t quite remember when it started exactly, it was about a month after Rhea had arrived at the facility that he truly started noticing the connection between the two of them; he had thought of it as his imagination then, a manifestation of his overwhelming emotions when it comes to his predecessor, but upon giving the connection a metaphorical poke, the shock that definitely did not come from himself and the static-filled garble that sounded like Rhea solidified his hypothesis that yes, this connection is indeed as real as the fact that they are living on Mars. It is with this bond that he manages to feel for her, speak for her, and come to her rescue when her system fails again from the stress of everyday life, and his pre-construction software already cannot predict his life without it merely two weeks after the realisation, the connection too intimate and vital to live without.

That is, of course, until he is forced to do so.

‘But why, Anchor? It’s not like my performance is based on how close I am to Rhea. I don’t even bring her to training sessions!’

From the other side of the door, the human turns and stares sternly at the android who is standing stubbornly outside the frame. ‘You need to learn to fight without her presence in your mind,’ at least her voice is calm when she explains. ‘We are still uncertain what kind of signal you two are broadcasting to each other, but, in theory, everything can be intercepted and blocked. I just want you to be prepared.’

Cronos suddenly realises that he really, really doesn’t want to sever the connection. ‘How about Rhea? What will happen to her?’

‘Software update. She’ll stay offline from most networks for the while. If all goes well, you’ll be out in no time before the software finishes downloading, and it’ll feel like you weren’t even gone.’

‘And how about you?’ anger rises from deep within Cronos’ programming and causes him to shove Anchor deeper into the room with his biotics. She puts on her helmet and fastens it against the collar of her armour. ‘You’re human. What do  _ you _ know about androids, huh? You claimed to wish to protect me and Rhea from the Administrator but now this? Is this -’

_ Software updating in 3, 2, 1… shutting down. _

Rhea seems to have used the last few moments of her consciousness to give him a warning before the bond snaps and is just… gone, an emptiness rivalling that in Rhea’s storage appearing in the place where she has been mere seconds ago, and it is through his momentary lapse of focus that Anchor biotically drags him into the stadium and locks the door with a punch on the metal, cutting off the ventilation and noises of the corridor, the constant stream of data he requested regular updates of out of sheer boredom, the sound of dry ice hitting the roof of the building; when he tries to take a step, he realises that not even artificial gravity is turned on. There’s only the rattle of the compartment against the Martian wind, his own erratic and overworked system thanks for the sudden understimulation, and the sound of his own thirium pump beating within his chassis, of it straining itself to send more blood to all his biocomponents to power his biotics, a spacetime-bending power that has always felt too powerful to be used on anything, but without the crackle of static, without the fizzle of air particles being charged and torn apart by physics-defying forces, without worrying that his emotions will bleed through to Rhea through their bond, everything seems… easier, somehow. Like he doesn't have to worry about ten things at once before striking. Like there is no one else in the world other than himself and Anchor, whom he has to fight in order to even have a chance to leave.

‘You seem ready,’ Anchor says. ‘Shall we begin?’

Cronos’ blood roars in his ears, a regular  _ thrum, thrum, thrum _ that magnifies and overtakes his senses and overcharges his nerves and he’s glowing, the world around him is warping and bending, and although there is only bright, glowing blue in his vision, he can sense Anchor activating her biotics as well, the spacetime around her twisting in her own unique brand of destruction and control and tearing the bubble around Cronos in no time at all, leaving him panting with his back against the floor to cool down his biocomponents with a gun made out of blue tendrils - just a symbol, of course, since Anchor would never kill him - pointing at his brow. The roar recedes, but it still feels like his thirium pump is ready to burst out of his chest.

The dark energy gun dissipates. Anchor steps away from Cronos and helps him get up. They put some distance between them once more, and their bodies light up at the same time with their respective biotics.

‘Again.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/637711906684207104)


	13. day 22: carry

Not a day goes by without Cronos’ pre-construction software activating itself and giving him at least five ways Rhea can die in the next twelve hours. Not a day goes by without him being reminded of how fragile Rhea’s body is. Not a day goes by without something going wrong with her body, the connection between them suddenly dropping, or her biocomponents malfunctioning without any explanation just to return to normal a few minutes or hours later as if nothing happened. Near-death experiences are so familiar that Rhea can brush them off easily; one moment she lies cold in Cronos’ arms, the other moment she snaps her eyes open and demands for her lamp through the form of wriggling away from Cronos’ grasp and grabby hands, and Cronos, not wanting to ruin her mood, can only laugh and drag the lamp into her reach with his biotics while he is already preparing himself for the next malfunction deep in his processors.

Right now, though, he gladly allows her to abuse his goodwill for entertainment.

They exit the massless tunnel with a loud wham and collapse onto the thick training mat he placed on the floor for this exact purpose, Cronos falling down on his front with Rhea on his back so that his weight doesn’t crush her. Both of them are laughing, Cronos out loud because his voice box is fully functional and Rhea in her own silent, face-splitting grin way. When she rolls off, he can see her chest heave as if she is actually laughing, her arms flailing and smacking the mat underneath her in mirth, and he decides to focus on that instead of how still her legs are underneath her ankle-length dress despite the awkward and uncomfortable angle they are bent into. He gently places them into a position which puts less strain on her chassis and her joints and notes the lack of an interface despite the skin on her legs being deactivated at the moment. Still no luck.

_ Again! _ Rhea demands through their bond. Her multiple attempts to sit up all fail, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it and flops down onto the mat with a huff.  _ No blue! _

No biotics, which means she wants plain, old-fashioned running this time. Rhea can’t do both herself; losing her legs - however temporarily - gives Cronos an excuse to help her out, and although she hasn’t got tired of being carried around and experience speeds she can never achieve so far, they indeed have been doing it since sunrise when they discovered that Rhea couldn’t (still can’t) move her legs, and bedtime is approaching now. He can feel the steady flow of weariness on her end. ‘One last run,’ he offers. ‘And we go straight to bed.’

Rhea gives him a firm nod and sets Cronos into motion: he first drags her away from the edge of the mat towards the centre, then he helps her sit up, then he sits down in front of her with his back against her front, and then puts her legs around his waist. By now, Rhea knows that this is the moment she should wrap her arms around his shoulders, so all Cronos has to do is tip his balance forward so that she is plastered against his back before standing up and sliding his arms underneath her thighs to support her.

She giggles in their shared mental world.  _ I’m tall now. _

Cronos smirks with a huff of his breath.  _ Yes you are.  _ He adjusts the weight on his back. It is too light for a standard RK800 model.  _ Ready? _

Rhea squeezes his shoulders in affirmative. Calling up a map of the facility in his mind, he plots the most deserted and longest path back to their shared quarters and bolts. Having disabled his quick-time pre-construction software, the corridors and landscape and door frames all blur into one, the wind in his ears drowned out by Rhea’s excited squeals projected directly into his mind, and even though he cannot see from this angle, he can easily imagine the smile on Rhea’s face, her long hair tousled behind her and getting onto her face, her eyes nearly shut from grinning too hard. He remotely unlocks the door and nearly slams face-first into it, but it opens just wide enough for them to pass through, and he dives onto their bed just as Rhea releases her grip and falls off onto the mattress. She also tries to roll away from him and fails spectacularly because of Cronos’ superior speed and size, and he smoothly captures her with a blanket and just… holds her against himself while he catches his breath. How come this is more tiring than two hours within the combat simulator?

It doesn’t matter much since he gets dragged into sleep by Rhea’s drowsiness bleeding through their bond, and just like humans, he won’t remember his dream when he wakes up, but he does remember carrying a weight on his back as he runs across an endless field, with the sky blue above him and Rhea’s actual laughter in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/638315481244352512)


	14. day 24: identity

‘May I ask you a sensitive question?’

Anchor doesn’t look up from her datapad, relaxed and calm after their usual training session. ‘Shoot.’

Cronos wants to take a deep breath and decides against it. It would be too much of a giveaway. ‘Where exactly do Rhea and I stand?’

She does put down the datapad and looks at Cronos this time. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Rhea and I are not Alliance personnel. We may not be able to access the entire facility but we are free to roam around the sections we are allowed into. We are assigned quarters, we are allowed to participate in site activities and requisitions, and yet most personnel are instructed to treat us as guests only. On the other hand, I have observed that information about ourselves is disclosed to us on a need-to-know basis while the other androids in the facility have full access to their personal information. What makes us different?’

Anchor plants a foot onto the floor and swings her chair from side to side. ‘Allowing you to roam around where there is no sensitive or classified information and technology is a basic right that I must grant. Same as comfortable shelters and social connections. But unlike other androids, both of you are RK series prototypes designed to constantly evolve and adapt to your surroundings -’ Cronos nearly snorts at this; Rhea? Adapting? With this state? The probability of the human lying is high, but he allows her to continue - ‘so what we give you may be outdated after a short time. Hell, even I have a hard time piecing together what exactly the Administrator did to Rhea.’

That is unexpected. ‘The Administrator did not inform you about Rhea’s modifications?’

‘Only after I yelled at her about what I’ve seen, and she discloses information like squeezing toothpaste through a hole you had poked in the package with a needle. I don’t know a lot more than you in that regard.’

Cronos has to stop and construct the image in his head. ‘So you do know something that we don’t.’

‘Out of necessity.’ Then turns back to work.

‘Anchor, please,’ Cronos stands up and puts himself between Anchor and her desk so that she cannot ignore him, ‘you must understand that we can’t live in secrecy forever. Who are we to the Alliance?’

The human leans backwards as she exhales and throws an arm behind the back of her chair. Glowing rings of green meets blue, and she says, ‘Sometimes it’s better to live in ignorance.’

‘If that’s what the Administrator wanted, she made me wrong. I am designed to find answers and the lack of it -’

‘Both you and Rhea were designed to be deviant hunters and yet here you are, so throw that I’m-designed-to-do-this bullshit out of the airlock.’

‘But I -’ he cuts himself off because he simply cannot fathom himself massacring every single android in the facility - including Rhea - and then committing suicide, because if what Anchor said is true, that will be his prime directive. And Rhea? As an android as strong as him? His biocomponents overheat from trying to imagine her being just like him, and the thought of her fighting by his side as his equal, their movements seamless and complimenting each other across the battlefield… Is that what they are rid of? ‘No, it can’t be,’ he settles on in the end because…  _ because _ . 

‘Yes you are,’ Anchor places a hand on his arm and pushes him to one side, a hint of biotics crackling in her palm telling him that he should comply instead of resisting. She finally reaches her desk. ‘Trust me when I say it matters very little now, what you were designed to be in the first place. Rest be assured that despite the distance we put between you two and the rest of the staff, we have orders to protect you at all costs if the site is under attack,’ green eyes turn towards his, ‘even if it means you will be the only survivors.’

Cronos has to take a step back from the sudden intensity in the human’s voice. ‘Are we that important?’

Anchor turns back towards the screen and places her palm on the desk to interface with it. ‘To the Administrator, yes.’

‘To you?’

‘I carry out her orders without question unless they are really fucking stupid. This is not one of them.’

‘You aren’t going to tell me the truth anytime soon, are you?’

‘Listen,’ her body twists towards him once more as her hand remains plastered flat on the desk, ‘the Alliance was founded in secret more than a decade ago. We started with secrets, we survived by keeping many things secret, and we will not hesitate to die to keep it this way if humanity benefits from this as a whole. Secrets set us free.

‘Everyone here has a past they do not wish to visit, Cronos. Are you going to revert to the mindless machine with killing your own kind as your mission? Is Rhea?’

It is an easy question. ‘No.’

‘Good.’

She turns back, and the rings in her eyes spin as she processes whatever she is downloading from the computer; a dismissal in the form of an android’s trait implemented and executed by a human. Reminded of the walls in Rhea’s systems preventing him from accessing her built-in databases, he wonders how many things are hidden behind them, and what they exactly are to be required to be stored in a malfunctioning android’s mind. Rhea, as usual, welcomes him with a hug and nuzzles his neck for kisses when he gets back, and as he complies with her wishes and cuddles with her underneath the blankets in their bed, he knows that being each other’s companion is what they can get for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/639852246881943552)


	15. day 25: mirror

It is one day while they are preparing to go to sleep that Rhea makes the observation.

 _We look alike_ , she says through their bond. _Look at the dots._

 _Dots?_ Cronos wonders for a moment before realising that she is talking about their freckles, and indeed, after capturing a shot of Rhea’s face in the mirror and superimposing it onto his own, he realises that the little sprinkles of artificial randomness on their faces are nearly the same. So is their facial structure, in fact, after he makes some additional comparison, except that his eyes are smaller and his brows lower. _Resting bitch face,_ his database helpfully supplies, and he didn’t even know the phrase exists until then. 

Rhea looks so much softer than him.

Behind her, he wraps his arms around her waist and has to lean down to match his head to her height, and the similarities and differences are even more prevalent now that they are side by side: he has blue eyes, Rhea’s are brown; the corner of his mouth is sterner, the lines of his face harsher and more angular. One moment they look like they are sculpted out of the same mould, the next moment they look so different that he would’ve dismissed Rhea’s claim if not for the megabytes of data he has already collected supporting it. She is a modified version of his predecessor, so maybe that’s why they look so similar? If he is also a prototype, why didn’t the Administrator change things up a bit?

 _That’s lazy,_ Rhea comments.

 _Maybe,_ Cronos says. _Or they simply wanted to save time on my design._

He files this into an increasing list of unanswered questions he has for Anchor and the Administrator and prepares himself for disappointment; it always is with his creators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/640621555802587136)


	16. day 18, 26: human; possessiveness/jealousy/greed

_ Calling KAMSKI, Elijah… _

_ Call connected. _

‘Cronos?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s wrong?’

In the darkness of his quarters with Rhea in his arms, Cronos stares at the ceiling decorated with an accurate projection of the night sky, the projector being one of the few items Cronos requested for himself but not for Rhea. His processors automatically recall the images from the movie he just watched not long ago with other personnel on the dig site, and he quickly blinks it away from his HUD. ‘May I ask you a question?’

‘Of course.’

On top of him, Rhea sighs and nuzzles deeper into the space underneath his chin, and Cronos clutches her waist tighter in response even though they are already at the closest they can be. ‘Less than an hour ago, I participated in a site-wide event called a “movie night” where all personnel were invited to join. I thought it would be an opportunity to learn more about humanity beyond the facility.’

‘Go on.’

‘I did not anticipate the effect of the movie would have on me. I reacted… poorly.’

‘How so?’

‘I -’ a thundering heart, red bleeding into his vision from the edge of his HUD, the feeling that can only be described as sickness overwhelming him and causing him to bolt out of the door even though he shouldn’t be able to do so as an android - ‘I had to leave.’

‘Why?’

‘I always knew I was different from the others. My status on-site is unofficial, I do not have any duties apart from taking care of Rhea and training under Anchor, and I am a unique prototype just like Rhea. My life in the facility is all I ever knew, so although I recognise and accept my differences, I have nothing to compare my personal experience with. Despite Rhea’s conditions, I was content with what I have.’

‘But now you have.’

‘Not just the movie itself; those I have watched in private with Rhea a few times before. It was… the others’ discussions.’

‘What about them?’

‘Unlike me, all of them can relate to what is shown in the movie. They all have first-hand experiences of… them. Of peace. Of a life without worries.’ Then he thinks of the background, of the environments. ‘Of earth. I was… My programme informed me that what I experienced was jealousy, but I do not understand why; I don’t like what I felt.’

Elijah is silent on the other side for a long while. ‘It is normal to feel,’ he says, his voice calm and gentle. ‘That’s what makes you human. What makes all of us human.’

Cronos would’ve shaken his head if he hadn’t been lying down. ‘ _ You _ are human. I am an android.’

‘An android who has broken the chains of his programming, yes. That makes the two of us more similar than you think. Think about it this way: life on the dig site is all you know. Unlike the others, you’ve never experienced life on earth. You do not have official status, you do not have memories tying you to what all Alliance personnel swore to protect, you have lived all your life in uncertainty thrust upon you both from living in space and taking care of a faulty android; of course you would be jealous of the stability and emotional connection the rest of us have.’

‘But I don’t want that,’ Cronos replies. ‘I just want Rhea to be healthy and -’ he remembers the dreams he has - ‘and stability.’

‘And living on a half-finished dig site battered by Martian storms won’t give you any of those.’

Cronos runs a few pre-construction cycles and realises that Elijah is right; with how tight-lipped Anchor and the Administrator are with his and Rhea’s information, it will take decades to get the truth out of them, and without the truth, there is no way for him to even start tackling the many issues Rhea has. He feels his blood charging and lighting up from anger just to dim and dull with despair. 

‘What can I do?’

It is silence from the human for a long while. ‘I don’t know, Cronos. I’m sorry.’

Tears well in Cronos’ eyes. ‘It’s alright, Elijah. I know you have your own hardships.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. You’ll never know if you don’t risk it.’

‘I don’t want you to suffer because of me.’

‘I have nothing to lose but my rank and I can perform my duties without it. Please, let me help.’

The android swallows. Given the Administrator and Anchor’s power, the probability that Elijah will be of any help is minuscule, but this is still better than the zero of not acting at all, and if the human doesn’t mind…

‘Thank you, Elijah.’

‘You are welcome, Cronos.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/641107691059773440)


	17. day 29: praise

‘You did good, Cronos.’

Cronos nerves are still tingling from keeping his biotics activated for so long when Anchor approaches him, and her face hidden underneath her helmet only serves to piss him off even more. Before he even realises what he is doing, he is already shoving the human - hard - so that she will stay away from him.

‘Cut your compliments, Director,’ scalding words do nothing to soothe the boiling in his veins. ‘Rhea’s coordinates. Now. Before I tear this dig site apart.’

‘And I can kill you this second before you can move a quark,’ Cronos expects another not-so-kind reminder telling him to know his place, but then all Anchor does is power up her omni-tool and send him a set of coordinates. ‘Eastern shuttle bay is intact,’ she says. ‘There is a transport but you’ll need to pilot it yourself.’

She is already turning away to direct others to clean up the mess the practice has made by the time Cronos finishes processing her words, so he bolts before she changes her mind; it isn’t exactly a common occurrence as Anchor is a human of her words, but nonetheless he is not taking any chances. The impromptu defence practice took at least a decade of life out of his supposedly infinite age so long as he replaces damaged or aged parts and transfers his memories to newer storage systems before they get corrupted. 

He is surprised that the coordinates lead him to what seems like a small settlement an hour’s ride away from the dig site, and he is more surprised by the lack of humans when he steps off the shuttle and scans his surroundings. Rhea is waiting for him on the landing pad, her skirt ruffling from the disturbance from the shuttle docking, and she runs into his arms the moment both his feet are on the sandy ground.

_ I missed you _ , she mutters mentally. Then she seems to realise how tight Cronos’ grip is on her and raises her hand, skin deactivated to reveal her chassis, placing it on his cheek to initiate an interface, their shared processing power more than enough to help her make sense of the images Cronos shows her; the panic as he realised that the facility was under attack, the fear when he found out that no instrument could detect Rhea’s life sign, the betrayal when Anchor told him that it was only a drill and Rhea had been transported off-site right after he had left her side for his training. And Rhea didn’t judge him for not figuring it out quicker, didn’t tell him to let go of her, choosing to deactivate the skin on her head and press their foreheads together instead to urge him to do the same. Cronos obliges, their connection wide open from direct contact on multiple spots, and he hears, clear as day:

_ You came back to me. That’s all that matters. _

And so he relaxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr link](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com/post/641370119882342400)
> 
> Thank you all those who have read to the very end. If you wish to see more of this au/crossover/ficverse, please consider subscribing to the [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046914) this fic belongs to. I have already planned quite a number of works both before and after this fic's event so I can promise that you won't run out of content anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> also on [tumblr](https://brokenjardaantech.tumblr.com). ask box/prompts/etc open


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